Coatings World - April 2012

(DCM) business unit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The planned facility, which will be located at the Jubail Industrial City, The new facility is the latest in a series of investments to be announced by Dow in Saudi Arabia. In July 2011, Dow and Saudi Aramco announced an agreement to form Sadara Chemical Company, a joint venture to build and operate a world-scale, fully integrated chemicals complex in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia. Upon completion, the joint venture is projected to be among the world’s largest petrochemical facilities and would represent the largest foreign direct investment into Saudi Arabia’s petrochemical sector.

Dow Coating Materials operates 43 manufacturing plants worldwide and 13 dedicated R&D facilities across all major geographic markets where Dow does business.

(Left to right): Jon Elliott, process development team leader, Croda Inc; Alan Levin, cabinet secretary for economic development; Robert Stewart, site director, Atlas Point, Croda Inc; Jack Markell, Governor of Delaware; Robert Bellino; site engineering manager, Croda Inc; and Robert Touhey, SHE manager, Croda Inc.

house, laboratories and office space, occupying a surface of 13,000 square meters.

supplying power to the plant from landfill gas as part of a project with Cummins Engineering and the Delaware Solid Waste Authority, scheduled to go live later in 2012.

Clariant strengthens pigment production for Chinese manufacturers

Clariant has expanded its global production capabilities to support customers in the Greater China region with the inauguration of a new pigments facility.

The new plant in DaGang in the city of Tianjin, which came on-stream end of 2011, is a joint-venture between Clariant and Tianjin Bohai Chemical Industry Company with a total investment of approximately $19 million. Clariant also operates a powder pigment plant in Hangzhou.

The new facility will produce pigment preparations in liquid and solid form for applications in the coating, plastics and printing industries, and for consumer products and industrial special applications. It includes 16 production lines, and ware-

Lucite International progresses plans for increased MMA and new MMA capacity at Beaumont, Texas facility Lucite International, Inc. said it is progressing with its investment to establish 150kte per year production of methyl methacrylate (MMA) in 2012 at its Beaumont, Texas, facility. The company will continue to produce MMA at its Memphis, Tenn., facility, offering two world scale MMA assets to serve the growing demand of the Americas customer base the company said. In addition, Lucite is progressing to commence production of methacrylic acid (MAA) at its Beaumont, Texas, facility, in line with the significant investments at the site announced last year. The MAA asset will have a capacity of approximately 23kte per year.

Delaware governor visits Croda’s Atlas Point manufacturing facility Delaware Governor Jack Markell recently toured Croda’s Atlas Point manufacturing facility in New Castle, Del. As part of his visit, he observed the many recent updates and improvements Croda has made in the site since acquiring it as part of the Uniqema acquisition from ICI in 2006 including significant investment in safety, health and environmental upgrades, energy efficiency and productivity improvements and new capacity for lubricant esters. In addition, discussions involved new developments at the site including a plan for

Momentive to close Wesseling site

Momentive Specialty Chemicals, Inc. said it is closing its Wesseling, Germany, site to better align European market demand for solid epoxy resins (SER) with its existing assets. Manufacturing at Wesseling is scheduled to close in October, 2012.

"While today's announcement is difficult, this action will improve the overall competitiveness of our base epoxy resins business," said Nigel Seymour, vice president, base epoxy resins."We are continuously analyzing our manufacturing footprint and cost structure to improve our productivity. We will be working closely with our customer base to ensure a smooth transition over the coming months."